On second thought...

From predicting soccer results to stopping his pulse, celebrity mentalist Shimi Attias claims "there is nothing supernatural about what I do."

Shimi Attias 370.
(photo credit:Pini Siluk)

Ever wondered how those thought benders manage all those seemingly stunning
“tricks?” You know the sort – asking someone to choose a card and somehow
getting the card to rise majestically out of the pack, or number guessing.
There’s got to be a trick, right? Well, if there is, 35-year-old Shimi Attias is
extremely adept at pulling it off, time after time.

Attias has done
pretty well in the popularity stakes over the years, appearing on such popular
TV shows as The Successor on Channel Two, which was devised by the world’s most
famous self-proclaimed psychic, Israeli-born Uri Geller, and also joined forces
with fellow mentalist Nimrod Harel in creating the Channel 10 show Bilti Nitfas
(Inconceivable).

He also appears regularly on Channel 2’s Mi Yapil et
HaMaster (Who Will Knock Out the Master), hosted by comedian Eli Yatzpan and,
today, he puts on shows all over the country, with his next taking place this
Friday, at Givatayim Theater, at 10 p.m.

“At that
time, I remember, at some stage I was on TV, on different channels almost every
day, and also on radio,” he recalls, “and one day, a neighbor bumped into me and
said: ‘how come we don’t see you these days?’ That was really
funny.”

Local media-abstainers aside, the truth is Attias has maintained
a pretty high profile for quite some time.

Naturally, Attias does not
reveal exactly how he does his thing, but he repudiates any claims that he has
special powers.

“Psychology and intuition come into it, but there is
nothing supernatural about what I do,” he declares. He is also aware of the
impression his turns have on people, and that there is always the temptation to
use his skills with less healthy intent.

“I have had all sorts of offers
to help people predict the result of soccer matches,” he says, which of course
could point some desperate punter or other in the direction of a Toto jackpot,
but Attias says he steers clear of misusing his skills for that sort of
financial gain.

The closest he got to that was around five years ago when
he forecast the outcome of a Premier League game between Maccabi Haifa and MS
Ashdod, who the scorers would be, when the goals would be scored, and even that
there would be a red card in the 51st minute. The latter feat brought Attias
kudos from a highly respected source.

“Uri [Geller] is very good at
helping teams win, but he gave me a lot of compliments for the Maccabi Haifa-MS
Ashdod forecasts, especially the fact that I foresaw the precise minutes in
which the goals were scored, and that a player would be sent off,” says Attias
with more than a hint of pride.

In fact, Attias had long aspired to
predict the results of soccer matches, and incidents during the
games.

“It was a childhood dream to do that, since I was about 13 or 14
years old,” he recalls, “I remembered I planned exactly how I’d do
it.”

But one of the dangers of stunning the members of an audience is
that, over time, they become accustomed to spectacular stunts and the
expectation level rises. That necessitates upping the ante.

“Israeli
audiences are really tough to please,” observes Attias. “When I was on The
Successor with Uri Geller I said we needed to do something extraordinary. I
mean, all sorts of people were doing telepathic stuff.”

So he did
something quite amazing.

“I stopped my pulse for the first time,” he
states. “There was a lot of fallout over that, and there were even discussion
about it in the Knesset. I almost died on live TV, and my mother almost fainted.
I did all sorts of dangerous stunts, with fire and with a
straitjacket.”

Eventually, however, domesticity took over.

“My
wife doesn’t allow me to do stuff like that anymore,” says the mentalist with a
smile.

Attias may have harbored big dreams as a teenager but he had to
deal with a particularly tough hurdle as a kid.

“I had dyslexia – you
know, in the Eighties they didn’t really know about that – I had problems with
coordination and dyslexia.”

“Yes, considering what I had to
deal with as a kid, what I can do today is really like a miracle – they are two
extremes.”

Attias’s mother sent her learning-disabled son to all sorts of
extra-curricular activities, in an effort to hopefully kickstart something that
would help him overcome his educational difficulties, but in fact it was his
father who unwittingly set Attias on the road to where he is today.

“My
father was a sailor and he’d bring me all sorts of presents from his travels,”
explains Attias. “One time he brought me a magic set. And the rest, as
they say, is history.”

The youngsters started performing magic tricks for
the family and friends and was delighted with their response.

“It really
started taking off, and I was just happy that people were impressed by what I
was doing,” notes Attias.

Attias’s parents were naturally delighted that
he’d found something he could excel at. He started making twice-weekly trips
from his home in Haifa to Tel Aviv, accompanied by his mother, to study with an
experienced magician.

He made rapid progress and it wasn’t long before he
began to come to wider notice.

Today, Attias is happy with his
popularity, and also that he has made it so far.

“When I was small, one
teacher told my mother that nothing would come of me. I think I have achieved
closure on that.”